Operating theater

An operating theater, also known as an operating theatre, operating room (OR) or operating suite, is a facility within a hospital where surgical operations are carried out in a sterile environment. Historically, the term "operating theatre" referred to a non-sterile, tiered theater or amphitheater in which students and other spectators could watch surgeons perform surgery.

History

Operating theatres had a raised table or chair of some sort at the center for performing operations, and were surrounded by several rows of seats (operating theatres could be cramped or spacious) so students and other spectators could observe the case in progress. The surgeons wore street clothes with an apron to protect them from blood stains, and they operated bare-handed with unsterilized instruments and supplies (gut and silk sutures were sold as open strands with reusable, hand-threaded needles; packing gauze was made of sweepings from the floors of cotton mills). In contrast to today's concept of surgery as a profession that emphasizes cleanliness and conscientiousness, at the beginning of the 20th century the mark of a busy and successful surgeon was the profusion of blood and fluids on his clothes.